Emerging PeaceMakers

We believe that the world needs more PeaceMakers.

We engage with and invite policymakers from Chula Vista to New York, religious leaders from City Heights to northern Iraq, youth from El Cajon to across Africa, private sector leaders from San Francisco to Colombia, and others, to engage with difficult issues and work together to create real, positive change.

Change starts with individual leaders. But in today’s world, those who seek to lead change are faced with unprecedented challenges and complexity. In the public sector, social and political systems are more intertwined and dynamic than ever before. In the business sector, the drive to accelerate innovation in a digital world means upending traditional ways of working. Whether their passion drives them to build the organization of the future or to solve societal conflicts, change leaders of today must have a broader range of skills and experiences than their predecessors and the resilience to quickly adapt - and succeed - in this new environment.

WorldLink: Social Fabric Initiative

Connections Matter

The Social Fabric Initiative (SFI) is a new WorldLink project designed to build dense social networks among youth within San Diego County. The goal: to build more connected, peaceful communities by engaging diverse teams in solving problems they identify in their communities. We are committed to providing a platform for youth voice and leadership, fostering relationships and bridging divides, and engaging youth as agents for change.

One of the most crucial problems facing San Diego, the United States, and the world is the unraveling of the social fabric, an increasing sense of marginalization and polarization, and the loss of dense social networks that create a common identity and a common sense of purpose. Youth today are yearning for more opportunities to engage with each other in positive ways through learning, doing, and leading. They can be a powerful force to mend our social fabric.

At the Social Fabric Initiative Launch Event, students from all walks of life will discuss problems in their communities and brainstorm solutions that youth can implement. The goal of the Launch Event is for 75-100 attendees to identify their particular area of focus, develop their small team or “Thread”, and determine a course of action and timeline.

Each Thread is comprised of 3-4 high school youth and one undergraduate student from the University of San Diego. The high school students are representatives of San Diego’s diverse demographics; the undergraduate will act as the project lead. Threads can decide to focus on community needs like climate change, gang violence, hunger and food insecurity, homelessness, mental health, discrimination, trafficking, beach and ocean conservancy, refugee isolation, or whichever issue they choose to tackle.

Threads will complete projects over the course of 3-4 months and meet back together for the Social Fabric Initiative Summit Event. There, they will share their project results and related experiences, discuss successes and failures, forecast future outcomes and/or needs, and celebrate their accomplishments.

The Social Fabric Initiative website is an online resource for high school volunteers, university level interns and field-based mentors who would like to get involved in the initiative. With a blog section, the website is also a place to watch the progress of youth-led projects that are happening in the community. The website is managed entirely by our team of high school interns, making it a for youth, by youth resource and publication.

Nepali Emerging Leaders Program

Engaging Government, Driving Community Solutions

The Nepali Emerging Leaders Program supports emerging peacemakers from across Nepal's seven provinces to more effectively and productively engage with government institutions. Working with its trusted local partner, the Leadership Academy, the project helps to strengthen the work of the program participants to create more robust connections between communities and the government institutions designed to serve them. These leaders come from diverse geographic, ethnic, caste, political, and professional backgrounds. Through their collaboration, they demonstrate to the country that working across divides is possible and show what real leadership looks like.

Across Nepal, young people are driving positive social change. However, too many young people in Nepal are unable to effectively work with government institutions and their political leaders. Lacking the knowledge of how to engage government actors, the legal system, and the media, and the connections for doing so, frustrated youth turn to protests, bandhs (strikes), and violence to get their concerns heard and to pursue the interests of themselves and their communities.

The Nepali Emerging Leaders Program (NELP) creates cohorts of emerging leaders who are disrupting these cycles of conflict and violence by constructively engaging government actors and institutions and communities to address the needs of the people, in particular youth concerns. The program does this by:

Participants receive training to more effectively work with government institutions and their community. Participants will receive training in topics like listening and communication, media engagement, soliciting community feedback, and facilitation

Participants are paired with a senior-level mentor who will offer advice and guidance throughout the project to make the work of each individual more impactful.

Participants have access to an on-call team of experts specializing in communication, the legal system, and the security sector, who will provide them personalized support.

Participants will form a cohort of emerging leaders from across geographic, ethnic, caste, gender, and political divisions, thereby creating a diverse group able to mobilize a wide cross-section of Nepali society. The cohort members will collaborate to identify challenges and develop strategies to better meet community needs.